MUNFORD, Robert, of Mecklenburg (ca. 1737-1783; colonial American planter, lawyer, military officer, local official, legislator, playwright, and poet)

Petition for judgement and summons for failure to pay debts, brought by George Stubblefield against John Bates, Thomas Childree, and William Mays, in a manuscript document, signed "Robt. Munford", Halifax County Courthouse, 22 July [1766]; docketed on the verso. 1 sheet, 4 3/4 x 6 1/4 inches, laid paper. Folded, tanned, edges slightly worn, but the ink clear and unfaded.

Munford was a prominent Virginian by virtue of family associations, education, land-holding, military service, and local and legislative office-holding. This document dates from the period of his Halifax County clerkship service (1760-1773) and may or may not be in his hand. Very few letters and documents identified as his are known and they exhibit considerable hand-writing variation (see Rodney Blaine's Robert Munford: America's First Comic Dramatist, p. 104, for an analysis of related evidence). Historians retrospectively grant Munford national prominence for literary work inspired by his professional and social experiences. His plays of the 1770s count as the first American farce and comedy. In them he mocked Virginia's political and social scene: specifically colonial elections in The Candidates and, in The Patriots, such persisting American issues as conflicting loyalties and war-time suspicion of minority groups. This writ is among the rare survivors of Munford's professional life. Item #70209

Price: $375.00